The scene in the ditch was appalling, although some of the officers assured me that they and the men were laughing at the precipitation with which many fellows plunged headlong upon the mass of bayonets, muskets, and sprawling soldiers, the ladders were all knocked down or broken, so that it was difficult for the men to scale the other side, and the dead, the dying, the wounded, and the uninjured, were all lying in piles together.
General Pelissier observed the failure of our attack from the rear of the Malakoff, and sent over to General Simpson to ask if he intended to renew it. The English Commander-in-Chief did not feel in a condition to do so. The Guards and Highlanders, the Third and Fourth Divisions, and most of the reserves, had not been engaged. As soon as we abandoned the assault, the firing slackened along our front; but in the rear of the Malakoff there was a fierce contest going on between masses of Russians, released they called it, in the severest terras. I have therefore thought it advisable to give the lengthened statement, which was furnished to me on the best authority the very day after the assault, of the motives which led General Windham to quit the Redan, and of the circumstances which preceded and followed that proceeding. I offer no opinion on the merits of the controversy. I merely state what wei'e presented to me — I believe correctly— as facts by one who ought to have been conversant with them. — W. H. Russell..
from the Redan, or drawn from the town, and the French inside the work; and the fight for the Little Redan, on the proper left ot the Malakoff, was raging furiously. Clouds of smoke and dust obstructed the view, but the rattle of musketry was incessant, and betokened the severe nature of the struggle below. Through the breaks in the smoke there could be seen now and then a tricolour, surmounted by an eagle, fluttering bravely over the inner parapet of the Malakoff. The storm of battle rolled fiercely round it, and beat against it; but it was sustained by strong arms and stout hearts, and all the assaults of the enemy were vain against it. It would be untrue to say that the result of our assault was not the source of deep grief and mortification to us, which all the glorious successes of our Allies could not wholly alleviate. Even those who thought any attack on the Redan useless and unwise, inasmuch as the possession of the Malakoff would, in their opinion, render the Redan untenable, could not but regret bitterly that, having undertaken the assault, we had not achieved a decisive triumph, and that so much blood had been, if not ingloriously, at least fruitlessly, poured forth.
The French, indeed, were generous enough to say that our troops behaved with great bravery, and that they wondered how we kept the Redan so long under such a tremendous fire; but British soldiers are rather accustomed to the nil admirari under such circumstances, and praise like that gives pain as well as pleasure. Many soldiers, entertaining the opinion to which I have alluded, think that we should at once have renewed the attempt. It is but small consolation to them to know that General Simpson intended to attack the Redan the following morning, inasmuch as the Russians by their retreat deprived us of the chance of retrieving our reputation, and at the same time acknowledged the completeness of the success achieved by our Allies, and the tremendous superiority of the fire directed against them.
The Second Brigade, Light Division, stormed at noon. The 97th and 90th, 300 of each, commanded, the former by Major Welsford (whose head was blown off as he was mounting an em* brasure — the gun was fired by a Russian officer, who immediately gave himself up as a prisoner to a sergeant of the 97th, that entered the moment after, throwing down his sword and saying, " I am a prisoner of war"), the latter by Captain Grove, the senior officer of the regiment present with the service companies. The salient was carried at once, and the men entered the stronghold, which is a work traced on a most obtuse angle, requiring a large mass of men to assault it, not only at the salient, but at the same moment on both flanks, so as to turn them, and to enable the salient storming party to advance down the interior space of the works at once, taking the defenders in front and flank, and indeed in rear, at the same moment. In consequence of attacking the salient only, no front could be formed, on account of the small interior space at that point; the men were forced to advance by driblets, and at the same moment fired on from traverses on either flank, where they could not see their assailants, an evil at once
CRIMEA.